Official WRC thread

Seb hasn't had luck off the course has he, the ticket in Sweden and now this.

Well I am happy, Ford seems to have clawed their way back to victory thanks to Hirvonen's great performance. Shame Latvala's suspension broke, he was stellar up to that point.
 
Atkinson did really well. When he gets the new STI I really think he will have a good chance.
 
^

yeah, but I don't really like Atkinson, Petter is only reason why I'm still supporting Subaru.
 
Atkinson did really well. When he gets the new STI I really think he will have a good chance.

sometimes it was only because of the bad luck of others through...

I'm increasingly hating that these days in the WRC, the guy who is 3rd on the podium is more than 4min behind the leader... and the guy in 5th is a massive 10min down...:(

but at the end of the day, the points is still very important when you don't have the speed to push for the win...:rolleyes:
 
Its not what it seems though. There is 300+ competitive km's in a current day WRC event. Atkinson for instance finished 5 minutes behind Hirvonen, thats less than a SECOND A KILOMETRE slower than Hirvonen. I agree its a shame but everybody is still just so so so close in pace.

Another great result to Atko, you might not like him MadCow, I am not his biggest fan either but without him Subaru would have next to no points in the last couple of years.

Crazy accident for Loeb and Rautenbach. Loeb was just demolishing everybody up until that point. He is fastest rally driver in the world by quite a large margin. Still easily the favourite for the title, even if his luck seems to have deserted him this year. Another shame for Latvala, seems to have Hirvonens measure in sheer pace.
 
You say Atkinson took the podium because others had bad luck, but he is very steady as we can see. With a better car (The new hatchback impreza) I really think he may have a chance for the title (If loeb continues to have some bad luck).
 
Man hahahahaha Petter seriously is so out of luck. Driving halfway and his bonnet flies up to smash his windscreen ?

Even his own car hates him. Somehow. I dont like his WRC2007.
 
Man hahahahaha Petter seriously is so out of luck. Driving halfway and his bonnet flies up to smash his windscreen ?

Even his own car hates him. Somehow. I dont like his WRC2007.

You also forget his tire blew out right after that.

I feel so bad for him. Every rally he starts off very good and then something breaks and he's out of the running. To put it simply: he has s*** luck.
 
The new Subaru couldn't come any sooner. Really feel bad for Petter.

The Italian Rally was very nice, I especially enjoyed the battle between the top 3.
 
Subaru announced that the new Impreza is going to debut in Greece later this month. I hope they have not rushed the development on that too much...

Sadly I completely missed last weekend's event as I was on a trip. It seems that it was a proper thriller for the win for once... Can't wait to see the highlights show.
 
I feel so sorry for Solberg as his fucking car keeps breaking. If the new one is any good, Atkinson will have a real chance for a title and solberg should be good too.
 
I hope this isn't old news, but Subaru have updated their site with a teaser of the new car. What a huge change!

No Hood Scoop?!

www.swrt.com
 
http://www.rallysportmag.com.au/home/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2716&Itemid=2

Very interesting news. Great to see more WRC cars out there! Will also be great to see another Brit in the world series.

Here's the question, who do you think will get the two seats? Will it see a return to the WRC of Markko Martin, given he is Subaru's head test driver.

Out of the brits I can think of Mark Higgins (perhaps too old which is a shame), Gareth McHale (very likely but runs a Ford), Guy Wilks or Kris Meeke.

If Rautenbach and Arva continue their programs we could see
4 Impreza WRC's
2 SX4 WRC's
4 C4 WRC's
6 Focus WRC's

16 top level current spec rally cars. Just need to get Mistubishi to build an Evo X WRC and enter a couple of cars and the series will he healthy again!
 
I woudn't call the SX4:s top running machinery, and actually wouldn't be surprised if we did not see them next year (the car is not competitive and there's little point in development since they can only use the car effectively in 2009).

Apart from that, the field for 2009 looks promising.

As for the Subaru B team, it'll be interesting to see who gets those seats. Hopefully the drivers get the seats with talent rather than bags of money.

As far as the UK drivers go, Meeke and Wilks are propably the most likely canditates. Mind you, in my view neither is world champion material (judging mainly from their results in JWRC) but both deserve a shot at the main game. As mentioned Higgins is already a veteran (two years older than Henning Solberg) and I don't see him getting the seat without sponsorship (a'la Henning Solberg). I don't think Gareth MacHale will get the seat either if talent is concerned, so far he has not impressed me with pace and his few good results have been more thanks to lack of top flight competitors and consistency. He has plenty of experience from WRC machinery and the sponsorship from family business, though, which could help. I'll add Barry Clark to the list as well but he's really a wildcard, since he's young, inexperienced and AFAIK firmly a Ford man.

As for non-UK entrants... I'll throw in some names, some more likely than others...
- Having Markko M?rtin back would be fab! He still has several good years ahead of him if he decides to make the return to the sport.
- Anton Al?n was mentioned in the Richards interview so DR must have given him a thought, but as he mentioned Anton doesn't have much WRC experience.
- Juho H?nninen could be a better choise for a Finnish driver, he has some promising WRC events under his belt in Lancer WRC's, and good results from PWRC as well.
- Andreas Mikkelsen seems to have talent, so if he could be lured from Ford camp he could be a good choice
- Also from Norway, Mads ?stberg has some good results under his belt.
- Francois Duval. Strong on tarmac, some talent, plenty of experience.
- Jan Kopecky. Unlikely, true, but would be interesting. Did some great results in the ancient Fabia WRC last year...
- Xevi Pons. Plenty of experience, also familiar with the team. Then again, I don't think his results last year impressed the team...

I left Ogier out since, as DR metnioned, he's a Citroen man. By the way, I would not be surprised to see Ogier in a third factory-entered Citro?n C4 WRC next year, maybe even this year. He seems to be on a similar ladder as Loeb and Sordo were in the start of their careers.
 
Looks like things are finally working for Petter, hopefully the car will last all the way and maybe he can even pull of a victory!

Must say that the new impreza is growing on me..
petter_hellas_SCANPIX960_1212134826.jpg
Where did that pic come from ? Sweet shot of the front !
 
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